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Luka Couffaine had heard many strange things in his life.
Some came from Jagged Stone, his father, who once claimed he had taught a crocodile to play bass guitar.
Some came from Juleka, who occasionally muttered something cryptic in her low voice and then vanished into her hoodie like a ghost.
And some—far too many—came from Sass, his kwami, who thought patience was the answer to everything.
But nothing was stranger than the fact that lately, everyone in Luka’s life had decided to tell him the same exact thing:
“Chloé Bourgeois is in love with you.”
The first time it happened, it was his mother.
“Sweetheart,” Anarka had said one morning while adjusting the sails of their houseboat, “that blonde girl with the sharp tongue—she’s got a soft spot for you.”
Luka almost dropped his guitar pick into the Seine. “Chloé? No way. She calls me—what was it—‘budget rockstar with thrift-store hair.’ Doesn’t sound like love.”
Anarka only smirked, her eyes glinting with the sort of wisdom that mothers always seemed to carry. “Trust me, I’ve seen the way she looks at you. It’s the same way Jagged used to look at his reflection in a mirror—utterly captivated.”
Luka groaned. “That’s… not encouraging.”
But then Juleka mentioned it. Quietly, of course, over breakfast.
“She… stares at you. Like… all the time,” Juleka muttered, her hair falling into her cereal.
“I think she’s plotting my murder,” Luka replied, dead serious.
Juleka gave him one of her rare smirks. “No. She’s worse. She’s… smitten.”
And then, of course, Jagged Stone himself got involved. His father called him up one evening, sunglasses on despite being indoors.
“Lukey, baby! I hear you’ve got a blonde chasing after you! That’s my boy! Following in your old man’s footsteps!”
“She’s not chasing me, Dad. She’s… insulting me.”
“Same thing! That’s how your mother showed affection, too. Threw a shoe at me once. Nearly took my eye out. I knew it was love at first throw!”
Luka hung up before the conversation got any worse.
But it did get worse. Because then Marinette, Adrien, Félix, Kagami, and even Zoé—all in different ways—began pointing it out.
Marinette: “Chloé acts so differently around you! She’s… nicer. Well, relatively.”
Adrien: “I’ve known her my whole life. She’s never tried this hard for anyone.”
Kagami: “It is obvious. Her words are sharp, but her eyes soften when she looks at you.”
Félix: “She insults you because she cannot express vulnerability. Classic deflection.”
Zoé: “She’s my sister, Luka. I know her. And I know she’s in love with you.”
Even Sass chimed in one evening while Luka was tuning his guitar.
“The strings of destiny are tangled, Luka. But the melody is clear. The girl’s heart beats for you.”
Luka rubbed his face. “Not you too, Sass. She calls me—what was the last one?—‘Captain Emo and the Shipwreck Band.’”
Sass only floated closer, his eyes gleaming. “Words may deceive. Feelings do not.”
⸻
The truth was, Luka didn’t understand Chloé Bourgeois at all.
Yes, she’d changed—at least a little. After all the akuma incidents, after Zoé’s arrival, after her endless clashes with Ladybug, Chloé had finally started trying to… well, not be nice, exactly, but maybe… better.
She apologized occasionally (though it usually sounded like “whatever, don’t get used to it”). She helped out in small ways (like buying coffee for the whole class, though she called it “community service”). And she even joined Luka’s band practice once, insisting she was only there to “make sure you losers don’t ruin music for everyone else.”
But when she sat on the edge of the couch, pretending to scroll her phone while secretly tapping her foot to the rhythm of Luka’s guitar, he couldn’t help but notice.
When she called him names like “Melancholy McBroodypants,” but her cheeks flushed pink while saying it, he couldn’t help but notice.
When she shoved an extra bottle of water into his hand after practice with a muttered, “Don’t keel over or whatever,” he couldn’t help but notice.
Still… love?
Impossible.
Right?
⸻
That afternoon, Luka was on the Liberty, strumming his guitar, when the hurricane herself arrived.
“Hey, Stringbean!” Chloé’s voice rang across the deck. She stood there, sunglasses perched on her head, designer shoes clicking against the wooden planks. “What tragic ballad are you crying into your guitar about this time?”
Luka sighed. “Hello to you too, Chloé.”
She strutted closer, tossing her hair. “Ugh, don’t get all mopey. I’m here to—” She stopped mid-sentence, frowning. “Wait, why do you look at me like that?”
“Like what?” Luka asked, blinking.
“Like you know something I don’t,” she snapped, crossing her arms. “Did someone say something? Was it Zoé? Ugh, that traitor.”
Luka strummed a lazy chord. “Everyone says the same thing, actually.”
Chloé tilted her head. “And what’s that supposed to mean?”
“That you’re… in love with me.” Luka let the words hang in the air, waiting for the explosion.
For a moment, Chloé froze. Her eyes widened, her cheeks pinkened, and her perfectly polished lips parted as if words had abandoned her.
Then, in true Chloé fashion, she scoffed. Loudly.
“Ha! As if! Don’t flatter yourself, Guitar Boy. The only thing I love is good taste, and clearly, you don’t have any. Look at that hoodie! Tragic.”
She spun on her heel, stomping toward the edge of the boat.
But Luka noticed—just barely—the way her hands trembled as she pulled her sunglasses back down to hide her face.
And maybe, just maybe, he began to wonder if everyone else was right.
—————————————-
Chloé slammed her bedroom door so hard that the golden-framed mirror on the wall rattled. Her heels clicked like gunshots against the marble floor as she paced back and forth, muttering to herself.
“How dare he? How dare he say that to my face?” She whipped off her sunglasses and tossed them onto her bed. “Ugh, Luka Couffaine and his stupid, dreamy eyes and his stupid, poetic voice—no, no, no! Not dreamy. Annoying. Absolutely, utterly, emotionally infuriating!”
She grabbed a pillow and threw it across the room. It hit her vanity chair with a muffled whump.
And then the door creaked open.
“Chloé?” Zoé’s gentle voice floated in. She stepped inside, clutching a sketchbook to her chest. “Are you okay? You sound like you’re auditioning for a villain monologue.”
Chloé spun around, her eyes narrowing. “You!”
Zoé blinked. “Me?”
“Yes, you!” Chloé marched forward, pointing an accusatory finger. “You traitor! You absolute backstabbing, golden-haired little—little mole! You told Luka, didn’t you? You told him that—ugh, I can’t even say it!”
Zoé tilted her head, calm as ever. “That you like him?”
Chloé’s face went crimson. “I do not! And even if I did—hypothetically, which I don’t—you don’t get to go around blabbing it to Mister Guitar Brood over there!”
Zoé smiled knowingly. “I didn’t tell him anything.”
“Yes, you did!” Chloé stomped her foot. “He literally said, and I quote, everyone keeps saying I’m in love with him. And who’s part of ‘everyone’? Oh right—you!”
Zoé hugged her sketchbook tighter, clearly holding back a laugh. “Chloé, he can tell on his own. Everyone can. It’s not like I had to spell it out for him. You’re about as subtle as a peacock in a library.”
Chloé gasped as though she had been physically slapped. “Excuse me?! I am the very definition of subtlety!”
“You just screamed about him being dreamy loud enough for the butler to hear,” Zoé pointed out.
Chloé’s eyes widened in horror. “He heard that?!” She ran to the door and yanked it open. “JEAN?!”
From somewhere downstairs, Jean the butler replied flatly, “I didn’t hear anything, Miss Bourgeois.”
“Good. Keep it that way.” She slammed the door again and whirled back toward Zoé. “See? This is exactly why I can’t trust you. You’re ruining everything with your ridiculous… sunshine… truth-telling!”
Zoé arched an eyebrow. “So what are you going to do, huh? Threaten me into silence?”
Chloé crossed her arms. “Yes. That’s exactly what I’m going to do.” She stepped forward dramatically, lowering her voice into a mock-evil growl. “If you so much as breathe a word of this to Luka—or anyone—I’ll…” She paused, thinking hard. “I’ll steal all your glitter pens. And then I’ll hide them. Forever.”
Zoé gasped. “You wouldn’t.”
“Oh, I would,” Chloé hissed. “And I’ll replace them with—ugh—cheap supermarket pens. The ones that explode ink blobs all over your drawings.”
Zoé clutched her sketchbook, horrified. “That’s evil!”
“Exactly.” Chloé smirked triumphantly. “So keep your mouth shut, sunshine.”
Zoé rolled her eyes but didn’t argue. She knew this was how Chloé operated—loud, dramatic threats to cover the fact that she was panicking inside. “Fine, fine. I won’t tell him.”
Chloé’s shoulders relaxed. “Good. Excellent. Perfect. Crisis averted.” She picked up her hairbrush and started running it through her hair furiously, as if brushing fast enough could erase the blush still lingering on her cheeks.
Zoé watched her for a moment, then spoke softly. “You know… you don’t have to be so scared of people knowing how you feel.”
Chloé froze. Her brush stilled mid-stroke.
Zoé continued, her voice gentle but firm. “Liking someone isn’t a weakness, Chloé. And Luka… he’s not the type to laugh at you. You know that.”
For once, Chloé didn’t snap back immediately. She stared at her reflection in the mirror, at her carefully constructed mask of confidence, at the faint tremor in her own hands.
Finally, she set down the brush and turned to her sister with a scoff. “Whatever. Feelings are overrated. Now get out of my room before I add ‘confiscating your hair ties’ to the threat list.”
Zoé just smiled knowingly and slipped out, closing the door behind her.
Alone again, Chloé sat down on her bed, grabbed her pillow, and buried her face into it with a groan.
Why, oh why, did Luka have to bring it up?
Why did he have to say it out loud like that, in that calm, infuriating voice?
And why—ugh, why—did her heart skip every time she thought about it?
Chloé kicked her pillow across the room again.
“This is ridiculous,” she muttered into the silence. “I do not like Luka Couffaine.”
But the little voice inside her head whispered, traitorously:
Yes, you do.
The next morning, Chloé came down to breakfast in full battle armor: flawless curls, perfect makeup, designer outfit.
She told herself she was fine. Completely fine. Totally unaffected by Luka’s ridiculous comment the day before.
Except she wasn’t.
She hadn’t slept properly. Every time she closed her eyes, she kept replaying his calm voice:
“Everyone says you’re in love with me.”
How dare he. How dare he say that with such confidence, like he actually believed it was possible.
And worse—how dare he smile so softly afterward, like he wasn’t mocking her, like he actually cared?
It made her stomach twist.
Zoé was already at the breakfast table, doodling in her sketchbook while sipping orange juice.
Chloé sat down across from her and stabbed a croissant with unnecessary violence. “I hope you’ve remembered our little… arrangement,” she said darkly.
Zoé looked up innocently. “You mean the glitter pen hostage situation?”
“Exactly. Keep your mouth shut about… you know.” Chloé waved vaguely, as if even hinting at the subject might summon disaster.
Zoé’s smile widened. “Don’t worry. I haven’t told him.”
Chloé narrowed her eyes suspiciously. “Good.”
Zoé flipped a page in her sketchbook, then said, almost too casually, “Besides… why should I bother? He laughs every time someone says that.”
Chloé froze mid-bite. “…What?”
Zoé shrugged. “Luka. He laughs. Every time someone tells him you’re in love with him. Mom, Juleka, Adrien, Marinette—they’ve all told him. And he just laughs it off, like, ‘Ha ha, no way, not possible.’”
The croissant slipped from Chloé’s fingers and fell to her plate with a sad, buttery thud.
“He… laughs?” she repeated faintly.
“Mm-hm.” Zoé nodded, doodling a little cartoon Luka with musical notes around him. “He doesn’t believe it. He thinks your nicknames and insults mean you can’t possibly like him.”
For once in her life, Chloé had no comeback.
Her throat went tight, her stomach sank like a lead balloon, and her heart—ugh, her stupid, treacherous heart—ached.
He laughed?
He really thought the idea was that ridiculous?
Like the thought of her, Chloé Bourgeois, actually liking him was… laughable?
She wanted to scream. She wanted to cry. She wanted to throw the entire breakfast table out the window.
Instead, she snapped, “Well—good! Excellent! Perfect! That means he’s not even thinking about it. Which is exactly what I want. Obviously.”
Zoé’s pencil paused. “Is it?”
“Yes!” Chloé barked, standing so abruptly her chair screeched against the floor. “Because I don’t like him. At all. Zero. Negative infinity. So the fact that he’s laughing is—” Her voice cracked. “—hilarious. Just… hilarious.”
Zoé studied her sister for a long, quiet moment. Then she said softly, “You’re scared.”
Chloé whipped around, her eyes blazing. “Excuse me?!”
“You’re scared of letting him see the real you,” Zoé said gently. “Scared that if he knew how you felt, he wouldn’t feel the same. So instead of telling him the truth, you hide behind insults. And now that you know he doesn’t believe anyone… it hurts.”
Chloé’s fists clenched at her sides. “I am not scared. I am Chloé Bourgeois. I don’t get scared. People get scared of me.”
Zoé’s look softened. “Then why are you shaking?”
Chloé glanced down at her hands. They were trembling.
She shoved them into her pockets instantly, her face burning.
“…Shut up,” she muttered, storming out of the dining room.
Zoé sighed, resting her chin in her hand. “For someone who claims not to care, you sure care a lot.”
⸻
Chloé didn’t go to class that morning. Instead, she found herself wandering aimlessly through Paris, sunglasses pulled low to hide her face.
She was furious. At Zoé. At Luka. At herself.
Furious that everyone could see through her.
Furious that she couldn’t stop thinking about his laugh—warm, soft, like music itself.
Furious that the idea of him dismissing her feelings so easily made her chest ache worse than any insult ever could.
She stopped at a café and ordered the most expensive drink on the menu just to spite the universe.
And as she sat there, stirring her caramel foam aggressively, she muttered under her breath, “Fine. If Luka thinks me liking him is laughable… then I’ll just prove him wrong.”
The barista gave her a strange look. Chloé glared back. “What? Ever heard of talking to yourself? Mind your own coffee beans.”
⸻
That evening, Luka was once again on the Liberty, tuning his guitar.
He didn’t expect company, especially not in the form of Chloé Bourgeois marching onto the deck like she owned the place.
“Hey, Broodster,” she announced, hands on her hips. “Laugh at this.”
Luka blinked, caught mid-strum. “Um… hi?”
Chloé threw a shopping bag onto the couch beside him. “I bought you a shirt. You’re welcome.”
He frowned, pulling it out. It was designer, of course—dark blue with subtle gold stitching. Price tag still attached.
“You… bought me clothes?” Luka asked carefully, as though he wasn’t sure if it was a trap.
“Don’t read into it,” Chloé snapped, her cheeks pink. “Your fashion sense is tragic, and it hurts my eyes. Consider this an act of charity. Nothing else.”
Luka chuckled softly, shaking his head. “You’re something else, Chloé.”
And there it was again—that laugh.
Not cruel. Not mocking. But warm. Gentle. Like he honestly found her endearing.
Which somehow made it worse.
Because if he could laugh so kindly… how could he not see what was really going on?
Chloé turned away quickly, hiding her face behind her hair. “Yeah, yeah. Just… try it on before I regret wasting money on you, Emo Boy.”
But inside, her heart was screaming.